If I die now
Fahid Fayaz Darangay
The whole life of we Muslims constitute of a trial and test by means of which his final destiny is determined. For us, death is the return of the soul to its Creator, God, and the inevitability of death and the Hereafter is never far from his consciousness. This serves to keep all of our life and deeds in perspective as we try to live in preparedness for what is to come. For us, the concept of death and the afterlife in Islam is derived from the holy Qur’an, the final revealed message from God.
The Almighty says, “No self knows what it will earn tomorrow and no self knows in what land it will die.” (31:33; H31:34)
Ibn Mas’ud said, “The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, drew lines making a square and then drew a line in the middle which extended beyond it. He drew some small lines up to this middle line from the side within the square and said, ‘This is man, and this is end of his lifespan which encircles him – or by which he is encircled – and this which goes beyond it is his hope and these small lines are things that happen. If this one misses him, that one gets him, and if that one misses him, this one gets him.’” [al-Bukhari]
Such a suitable word, death. I’d heard it since childhood without fully understanding its meaning, but it sounded, even through a haze of sleep and dope, just like itself: abrupt and brutal and irreversible. A stroke of lightning, the stroke of midnight, the stroke of a pen.
If I die now , a song written by Johansson Karl Daniel / SveningssonJoakim Christer which goes like following:
If I die now all I want from you is to remember
Who I am and who I’ve always been
If I die now I apologize to you forever
For all the bad things i have done troughout the years
If I die now what is the point of all my memories
It won’t be long until they’re gone you’ll see
If I die now I am so glad that I have met you
All my friends that I’ve had till the end
The long and cold end comes close
As time it won’t ever go slow
If I die now it is not like I have planned it
It was just too much for me to handle right now
If I die now I regret the thing I did not do
There’s so much left for me to wonder about
The long and cold end comes close
As time it won’t ever go slow
The line which caught my attention was “If I die now it is not like I have planned it”. Everyone died like they haven’t planned, everyone dies like they aren’t planning and everyone will die like they will not plan. Then a question is worth considering that if the planning of our death is not in our hands why we are not controlling which is in our hands the planning before death. The recent uneven death of a young man in my village forced me to write this piece.
There is an aphorism that Old people used to say, it says: causes of death are multifarious are several, but death always remains the same, so we can understand the common idea about (regarding) death in the past, that death is due to defined reason; for example sickness, accidents and suicide or other reasons, but to speak about uncaused death, that is the sudden death which wasn’t known in the past.
As recent medicine tools and systems have been developed, we could discover death reasons; cancer, epidemic diseases and infectious diseases are some reasons which indicate that death might occur, but the most important reason for death presently is the cardiac clot that occurs suddenly.
Scientists define the abrupt death that it is unexpected death that occurs during short period that doesn’t overtake one hour, and it was demonstrated that half of those who are infected by cardiac diseases will die abruptly! Most of sudden death cases are resulted from disturbance in the coronary artery.
Sudden death attacks patient even if he/she is inside the hospital; studies proved that 10% of patients die abruptly in the hospital and 90% of them die outside the hospital
The first cause of death in the United States is the cardiac disease; the cardiac clot which has the percentage of 28% of death cases. Reports affirm that during 2001AD 700 thousands humans died in the United States due to cardiac diseases!
Yet, what are the numbers of those who die due to abrupt death? In the United States, 300 thousands humans die every year suddenly due to cardiac diseases. Statistics confirm that the rate of sudden death generally increases around the world and men are likely exposed to die suddenly three times more than women.
Sudden death occurs without any herald or signs of cardiac diseases. Although billions dollars are paid for cardiac diseases researches in the united states, and although they could reduce sudden death cases caused by cardiac diseases, sudden death rate is still constant (changeless)!
We learn that death is exactly like sleeping; complete with dreams (6:60, 40:46). The period between death and resurrection passes like one night of sleep (the holy Qur’an: 2:259; 6:60; 10:45; 16:21; 18:11, 19, 25; 30:55). At the moment of death, everyone knows his or her destiny; heaven or hell. For the disbelievers, death is a horrible event; the angels beat them on the faces and rear ends as they snatch away their souls (the holy Qur’an:8:50, 47:27, 79:1). Consistently, the holy Qur’an talks about two deaths; the first death took place when we failed to make a stand with God’s absolute authority. That first death lasted until we were born into this world. The second death terminates our life in this world (the holy Qur’an 2:28, 22:66, 40:11).
If I die now, without being ready, guaranty I will face many hardships hereafter. How I will face the Munkar and Nakir, the two angels who will test my faith with their expected questions? How I can fail in the examination of which the questions I know?
Death will not give me another single chance of coming back. I as a Muslim should be ready not every day but every second for death. The families mourn but the person suffers the hereafter. The famous quote death keeps no calendar gives a misconception about the certainty about death. It is of certainty that death keeps a calendar.
(The author is currently pursuing asters in Financial Economics from Madras School of Economics, Chennai)
KV Network
